J.T. Ellison

Taylor stopped, wondering for a moment. Thalia Abbott was seventeen at a minimum. She wasn’t going to school here.

Taylor entered the sanctuary, the cool, incenseperfumed air greeting her. Unconsciously, she dipped her fingers into the small stone bowl of holy water by the door and crossed herself. She gazed at the altar, a peaceful warmth stealing through her. She always loved churches, though she rarely attended services anymore. It was funny, inside a sanctuary, she promised herself she would find a way to attend a service. Once outside, in the hard glare of reality, she never did.

“Are you Catholic?”

The voice surprised her and she jumped. A thin girl, late teens, with long, straight brown hair and deeply soulful brown eyes stood at her left elbow. She smiled, showing even white teeth. Her skin was creamy, unlined. Taylor had the feeling she’d seen the girl before, then just as quickly placed her. The girl looked like Noelle Pazia, a victim of the Southern Strangler she and Baldwin had caught the previous summer. Something about Noelle had always haunted her, and Taylor felt the goose bumps rise as she looked at the dead girl’s younger mirror image.

“Lieutenant Jackson, I presume?”

“I, uh, how, um, yes.” Impressive elocution there, Taylor. She cleared her throat. “How did you know?”

“I saw the news,” Thalia said simply, nonjudgmental.

“Lovely.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. No one in their right mind will believe that you killed someone without Judas Kiss

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reason. It’s in your eyes. You’re a guardian, not an avenger.”

Oddly pleased, Taylor smiled at the girl. “Some would disagree with you. You’re Thalia Abbott, I presume?”

“And you aren’t Catholic, I’d presume.”

“You’re right. I was raised Episcopal. My dad was Catholic, though. How did you know?”

“You don’t have that guilty look on your face. Though you crossed and blessed yourself, you walked right past the confessional without a second glance. Most nonpracticing Catholics couldn’t do that.” She smiled, and Taylor felt herself smiling back. This was not what she’d expected from her morning. Grace from a seventeen-year-old ex-porn star.

“Let’s walk,” Thalia said. She guided Taylor out of the sanctuary, into the sacristy. She held a cloth in her hands, Taylor realized she was dusting as they went.

“You’re too old for school here.”

“Yes. I’m working as a sacristan. I keep things nice for the priests and nuns while I decide what to do with my life. I’m thinking of taking orders, becoming a novice in the fall. I’ve felt a…calling.”

There’s a turnaround. Wow. Normally Taylor would encourage a young girl in Thalia’s position to look for other ways to deal with life; becoming a nun, sectioning herself off from the world seemed quite dramatic. But something about Thalia Abbott made Taylor bite her tongue. This was a young girl who knew her own mind; to talk to her about her own choices would be tacky. Taylor decided to ease in.

“Thalia is such a pretty name. Is it Greek?”

The girl looked at her in surprise. “Very good, Lieu-310

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tenant. My mother is from Athens. Thalia was the Muse of Comedy. She also worked part-time as one of the Graces—Thalia the Flowering. It’s a nice history. I’d like to think that I inspired some creativity at some point in my life. I’d like to teach art, so perhaps it was prophetic of my mother.” They had moved through the nave of the church now, and Thalia pointed to a door. Taylor followed her out into a small garden, fully enclosed by the surrounding buildings. A pebble path wound through small patches of grass. A few carved statues sat unobtrusively in the four corners, a stone bench sat next to a burbling fountain. They took a seat, Thalia with her back straight and the same beatific smile she’d had on for the past five minutes.

“This is my favorite place. It’s easy to think here.”

A calm had stolen over Taylor, similar to the feeling she’d had inside the church. “I can understand why. Can you teach art if you’re a nun?”

“Of course. Especially in our fast-paced world, where people don’t take time to read. Art can play a huge role in communication, especially to the young. There are certainly centuries of religious works to study.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, then Thalia spoke again, her voiced tinged with sadness. “Jasmine called me. She told me to answer your questions. I don’t know everything about the secret society, but I know some. I’ll help in any way that I can.”

“I appreciate that. Jasmine told me that there is a club of girls who are making sex tapes to be posted on the Internet. What can you tell me about them?”

Thalia contemplated her hands, which were nestled in her lap. “It’s not what they make it out to be, for Judas Kiss

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starters. It’s supposed to be this glamorous, exciting club that everyone wants to be a part of, and only the most beautiful and popular are tapped. You know what being tapped is, right?”

“Yes. You’re chosen by the group, have to go through some awful ritual, then you’re a pledge of sorts.”

“Sounds like you’ve been through it.”

“I have,” Taylor said. “I don’t think it was quite what you’ve gone through, though.”

“Not unless your first task is to fellate the captain of the football team.”

Trying not to show her shock, Taylor answered lightly. “Definitely not. That was your initiation?”

“Yes. I got a note in my locker telling me to go to the Pergola immediately. That’s what they call this small building off the football fields where some of the kids go to smoke. I followed their instructions. They blindfolded me the moment I walked through the door, pushed me to my knees. Explained that they were tapping me and to prove myself worthy, I had to suck off this guy. So I did. Things took off from there. It was sick, and twisted, and the longer I was involved, the more ashamed of myself I became. Blow jobs became sex, the sex became fetishistic, then they started in with the cameras. Fifty points for getting a video up on the Internet, one hundred for selling it to a production house. When I dropped out, they ostracized me. I stopped going to school, got my GED, and started working here. I needed to find a new path, forge a future that I could live with. To find some forgiveness for my stupidity.” She waved a hand in the air, swatting away the memories.

“That’s not what you need to hear. Jasmine said 312

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you’re looking for names of the girls who were actually on film.”

“Yes.” Taylor withdrew a folded still shot of the two girls from the video from her pocket. She smoothed it open. “Can you identify either one of them?”

Thalia took the photo. “Both. The one on the left in the pigtails is Tracy Civet, the one on the right is Jere Beisman. Both seniors last year. Both a little nuts, if you want my opinion. They want to do porn full-time. These little movies are going on their résumés.”

“And do Tracy and Jere work solely with Todd Wolff?”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You think they killed his wife.”

Taylor didn’t miss a beat. “Did they?”

Thalia shook her head. “I don’t know. I doubt it, though. They didn’t care about her, she was just the cameraman.”

“She didn’t participate?”

“Not that I knew of.”

Taylor had seen tapes with Corinne as an active participant. She must have started off behind the camera, then decided that wasn’t enough. Evolution.

“How did she feel about her husband having sex with the girls?”

“As far as I know, she was fine with it. She was very professional, always telling you where to be, where to place your legs, your hands, your mouth. ‘Spread those cheeks, girls.’” Her face fell. “This is just what I heard, I never filmed with them. I backed out before it got to that.”